Hi! I’m Andrés Cantone, traveller by choice.

I was born in Chaco, I lived my first years in Buenos Aires, but I ended up living in La Cumbre, in the hills of Córdoba. During my childhood, I was ashamed of the car we had with my family. It was old, it was all broken and could barely get where we needed to go. I didn’t like getting to school because everyone else had a newer car and I felt out of place. I used to tell my mum to change it, but she always replied with a wise lesson: she preferred to save the money to travel and explore the world. For her, travel is a way to expand the mind and transform one’s perspective. They are experiences that last forever, unlike a simple material object like a car.

My travel history began with a visit to the United States, where I had an uncle living. I visited that country more than ten times, and, also with my mother, we visited some places in Central America. Isla Margarita, Dominican Republic, Cuba, left me with memories during my childhood.

When I was a teenager, she gave me the best gift she could give me: an Italian passport. At the time, I didn’t understand the value of that present, but with time I realised that it was a key that would open so many doors in my life.

Years went by, my then job as a music teacher had become monotonous and I felt the need for a change. I asked myself, why not travel, why not explore the world, meet new people, learn new languages and earn money in the process? That thought motivated me enormously, and I started researching travel, life in different destinations, how to find employment and accommodation, and how to apply for a visa. That’s how I came up with the idea of applying for a Working Holiday Visa in New Zealand. 

When I arrived in that country, my plan was to stay for one year, but everything changed as I went along. My visa was extended and together with my partner at the time we got a sponsor who offered us a permit to stay for almost 5 years. In that time I worked over 30 or 40 different jobs, from cleaning toilets to handing out popcorn at a Cirque du Soleil show, to serving beer at All Blacks rugby matches against Los Pumas. I also worked in the fields, both in irrigation and running alpacas into their pen, trying not to get spat on, for 60 dollars an hour, would you believe? I learned a lot from every job, even the less attractive ones. 

And I was able to save. After five years in New Zealand, we decided to go to Asia. Being close and cheap, we started travelling around that region for 8 months. We visited places like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, China and Fiji.

We returned to Argentina, but only for a holiday. The idea was to reconnect with the warmth of our people and recharge our batteries to return to Oceania, this time to Australia. Dancing salsa and bachata, I met Lauren, the person who is now my partner and mother of our son. I would never have imagined ending up with an English woman dancing bachata in Australia! At the moment we are in Argentina and we are going to wait and rest for a while, but very much looking forward to coming back to see more. 

What I have learned throughout my life as a traveller is that experiences are more valuable than material things. Money can be earned and lost, but the experiences stay with you forever. I learned to value what really matters: family, friends, health and adventures that make us feel alive. Each trip has taught me something new and has made me grow as a person.

Life is short and the world is too big to stay in one place. Go out to explore, discover and learn. As Mark Twain said: “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page”.

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